I levitate to the thirteenth floor
each time I proclaim how desperately
I covet connection,
and once the capsule jerks to a halt,
and my stomach drops,
the light blooms,
the imperceptible chime rings,
but the door won’t budge
because sincerity is too much,
and the floor was never there.

– Brontë Pearson

Author’s Note: “Triskaidekaphobia” was written for a poetry exercise called The Fish Tank of Rage, where you are given an abstract emotion and a random object and must craft a poem combining the two. “Triskaidekaphobia” was the product of “the elevator of rejection” and plays upon the idea of many buildings lacking a 13th-floor due to superstition.